Decades after the fact, both the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation remain highly secretive about parts of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International money laundering and embezzling investigation and the story of Khalid bin Mahfouz. While the FBI released some documents on Bin Mahfouz and BCCI, with portions remaining redacted under citations of a pending law enforcement proceedings, the CIA flatly refuses to confirm or deny any information on Bin Mahfouz, despite a former CIA Director having publicly (and falsely) accused him of being Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law.

Like the AP, requests for OBL raid files came back frustratingly empty for MuckRock users. The revelation that records were ‘transferred’ to the CIA provides a new window to refile for raid documents and pries loose details of the manhunt.

On May 3, 2011, Aaron Swartz filed a request for "photos or videos from the 2011 operation to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan". On Jan. 9, his request was denied. The reason was expected to be that they were exempted from disclosure. Instead, the Defense Department replied saying the documents could not be found.